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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294298">as in berlin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell'>ell (amywaited)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Welcome to Night Vale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Anxious Carlos, Comfort, Existential, Existentialism, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, anxious, bordering on purple prose, mental health, mostly comfort, supportive boyfriends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The window opens. The curtains, the stupid ugly net ones that Carlos would much rather burn into nothing more than ash than have hanging on his windows for a second longer, blow. The window shuts again. He wonders if he imagined it. </i>
</p>
<p>  <i>The glass on the counter top is teasing him. It’s edges are glaring at him. He glares back, hoping he can beat it into submission. It explodes into even tinier pieces. </i></p>
<p>  <i>His heart beats again, harder this time. Like it wants to get out. Carlos sympathises greatly. He holds his hand up to his face and admires how they shake. His fingers, spindly and bony that they are, like spider’s legs, vibrate with a frequency he hasn’t seen for years. <i></i></i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carlos/Cecil Palmer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>as in berlin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>enjoy!!</p>
<p>title from <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/4SHyCVkyG8KG5Ut3EGZzd5?si=JDdFS8Z9Rmus3BpogqneMg">as in berlin</a> by the jane austen argument.  once again, wholeheartedly recommend.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He stands in the kitchen. There’s a broken glass in the corner, pieces ground into the grout, because he hasn’t cleared it up yet. The largest piece is on the counter top, and his heart beats so hard, he can feel it down to his toes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The window opens. The curtains, the stupid ugly net ones that Carlos would much rather burn into nothing more than ash than have hanging on his windows for a second longer, blow. The window shuts again. He wonders if he imagined it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Carlos?” says Cecil. Carlos wonders if he imagines that too. “Come back to bed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The glass on the counter top is teasing him. It’s edges are glaring at him. He glares back, hoping he can beat it into submission. It explodes into even tinier pieces. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Carlos, was that you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His heart beats again, harder this time. Like it wants to get out. Carlos sympathises greatly. He holds his hand up to his face and admires how they shake. His fingers, spindly and bony that they are, like spider’s legs, vibrate with a frequency he hasn’t seen for years. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Carlos?” Cecil calls, again again again. Carlos is fairly certain he’s imagining it, until Cecil arrives in the kitchen doorway, and seems to melt a bit. The change in air pressure seems to be getting to him, too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The millions and millions of shards of glass are laughing at him, and it sounds like old machinery grating. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cecil sighs. Carlos sees the curtains billow outwards again. “Oh, Carlos. Come on.” He holds his hand out, and for a second, his nails turn into claws. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos steps over the pile of glass. There isn’t anywhere he wouldn’t go with Cecil, whether he’s imagined it or not. His nails, thankfully, do not turn into claws whilst Carlos is holding them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cecil leads him out of the kitchen until Carlos cannot hear the glass anymore. Then, past the bathroom (Carlos determinedly doesn’t look at the bathtub, for there had been some sort of alien monster combination in there, last time. It smells like stagnant pond water, no matter how much cleaner Cecil buys, and it’s just beginning to become reassuring), and into the bedroom. Once there, Cecil removes the net curtains from the windows. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos feels the cage around his lungs loosen only slightly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happened?” Cecil asks. His eyes look just like that goddamn broken glass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos breathes in. He exhales, and he hopes that says it all, because his teeth don’t feel like his own and his eyes might just fall out of his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cecil nods slow enough that seconds pass. “This is a moment,” he says, so wonderfully matter-of-fact that Carlos can’t not listen. “You are existing. We are existing together. I choose to exist with you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I choose to exist with you,” Carlos echoes. The words aren’t quite his, although he doesn’t mean them any less, and that makes it easier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The universe is vast, and nothing will matter for a long time now,” Cecil continues, “and yet, you are still something.” Cecil says </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you </span>
  </em>
  <span>without ever saying it. He says </span>
  <em>
    <span>universe </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Carlos knows what he means, every time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is life,” Carlos says. The glass in the kitchen, the net curtains, the ashes. Cecil’s claws and his nails, and teeth that don’t fit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Infinity is comforting,” Cecil tells him, “but you still want to mean something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos nods. He still wants that. He wants the sun to bleed to the edge of existence, and he wants this house preserved in a sepia photo, burnt into a dark room. He wants Cecil’s lungs to breathe into his own, and he wants it forever, because Cecil is timeless and Carlos is undeniably selfish. Because Cecil looks as beautiful in any era as he does his own. Black and white and colourless suit him, and they contort around the angles in his face, around his clothes and his hands, like they’ve always belonged there. Because Carlos is selfish, and he will always, always want Cecil. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too,” Cecil says. He sits down on the bed. Carlos counts each crease in the sheets. “Come back to bed,” he says. “Everything will be there in the morning.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos doesn’t mention that clock had struck whatever might pass for midnight three hours ago. Instead, he believes him, and sits next to Cecil and counts his own creases in the sheets.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cecil doesn’t say that everything will be alright. Carlos knows he’s thinking it, but he won’t say it. He just thinks it, and for Cecil, that is as loud as shouting. Carlos is learning his whispers and his yells and his everything in between, and he’s learning to speak his language. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He says, “thank you,” and Cecil kisses him. Slow, and careful, like Carlos is a minefield and Cecil is blind. Methodical, and he leaves no stone unturned. He takes every lick of unease from Carlos and holds onto it tight, takes every sour mothball spore and locks it in his own throat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos watches his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Go to sleep,” Cecil says. Carlos kisses him. He thinks about taking a photograph with his mind, thinks about bleaching onto a sheet of glass, and then he sees it in the kitchen, and Cecil kisses back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good night,” Carlos says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I choose to exist with you,” Cecil reminds him. Carlos can see his own sharp ugly dust in his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you’re real,” he says. Cecil looks like he wants to protest. “You are the best thing I’ve ever existed with.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cecil puts his hands on Carlos’s shoulders and tugs so gently, Carlos barely feels it. He sinks backwards, into the mattress, into Cecil’s arms. He says, “I’m as real as you are,” and, “you’re the best thing I’ve ever existed with, too,” and “good night, sweet Carlos.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Carlos believes him, and when he wakes up, the glass in the kitchen is still there, but it doesn’t scorn him as it did when shadows hid in the corners. Darkness makes everything different. When he wakes up, Cecil is there, and his hands are twisted together, and his nails are just nails again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’ll wake up the next morning, and the one after that, and things may not be alright, but they’ll be there. And Cecil will wake up with him.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>more existential fluff? yes. let me know what you thought.</p>
<p>hope everyone has a good day. xxxx</p></blockquote></div></div>
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